Saturday, January 23, 2010

If you think cooked rice cannot give you food poisoning, you are totally wrong. Rice has spores of bacteria Bacillus cereus. This bacteria remain dormant in rice, and will get active if rice is added heat and water.

After cooking, the rice will cool down and this phase allows spores of Bacillus cereus to grow, producing toxin. If you reheat the rice, it can kill the bacteria, but the toxin remains in the cooked rice.

So if you cook rice, store what you don't eat in a container and put inside the fridge after the rice is not steaming anymore. You can keep this cooked rice in fridge for 3 days.

But if you let the cooked rice out of fridge and stay in room temperature for more than 4 hours, you should throw this rice away as it is no longer safe and can cause food poisoning.

Raw vegetables and spices also might contain this bacteria. So do the same thing to your curries.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Happy New Year 2010! Best wishes for you all!I have been and still away for holiday. I will try to squeeze in some time now and then to blog.

So for you guys who are still in holiday, relaxing your muscles, tension, and your brain, enjoying good food, please do watch out for what you eat. You certainly do not want to get food poisoning during your holiday.

When you are out and about, hanging out in some cozy cafe, served with most delicious chocolate mousse, keep this in mind that this seemingly safe chocolate mousse can give you salmonella poisoning, if it is not prepared and stored correctly.

The explanation behind this is that chocolate mousse is made with raw egg. If contaminated, any kind of foods made with raw egg become a breeding ground for salmonella bacteria if it is leaved at room temperature for more than 4 hours.

This is especially true when the unwashed eggshell is cracked open during cooking, the bacteria from the shell contaminate and grow in the egg at room temperature.

So watchout for chocolate mousse, ice cream, tiramisu, which are all made with raw egg. These foods should be stored in a fridge at or below 5 degrees Celcius.